


Death Will Be A Relief

by sarahandthegraveyardshift



Series: Motel Hell Chronicles [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Good Peter, I don't know how, M/M, Murder Husbands, and don't we all just love those?, but they're cuties, it just snuck up on me, mildly chris/derek, plus a smutty bonus scene, these boys I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahandthegraveyardshift/pseuds/sarahandthegraveyardshift
Summary: No, it isn't a dream. It isn't a nightmare. This is his reality now—sitting beside a man who used to love him, who doesn't remember any of their time together.[The djinn.]
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Motel Hell Chronicles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742245
Comments: 31
Kudos: 349





	Death Will Be A Relief

**Author's Note:**

> *takes meat pies out of the oven* Another Sweeney-Todd-titled work emerges!!!
> 
> *waves profusely* Hey! Hi! Hello! Oh my gosh, you're here! I'm so happy to see you! I am sending a ridiculous amount of social-distancing internet hugs your way. Because you are amazing, and you deserve all the good things! 
> 
> I know with everything happening, people are scared. As frightening as it is, our country is in the middle of a necessary change. We are apart of this. We are the generation that will be in history books. We have the voices to set things in motion and make sure our leaders are being held accountable and pushed in the right direction. I acknowledge my privilege as a white person, and I understand my role is to make sure less-heard voices are not drowned out. I understand I need to be silent and listen to those voices when they speak, and be loud and insistent to carry their message to those who refuse to listen. I kneel to honor the black community and the lives lost so unnecessarily, and I stand for George Floyd and his family.
> 
> To those of you out there on the front lines: 
> 
> Be strong! Be brave! Be safe! You are heard! You are loved!
> 
> BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Stiles shakes as he stares into Peter's eyes, as his world crumbles around him leaving only a vast void in its wake. 

“No,” he says, tears loosing as the tremors worsen.

“Stiles,” Peter says calmly, but there's ache in his voice, in his strained smile. “It's okay.”

“ _No_ ,” Stiles says again, forcing the word from his throat with a wet gurgle. “I won't. I won't lose you.”

“Darling, if you don't, we'll both be dead.”

Stiles reaches out, fingers hovering, fluttering over Peter's lips, trailing down his cheeks, his jawbone. 

He knows this face. He knows it so well. And never being allowed to touch it again...

“I'd rather be dead,” he confesses. 

Wicked, sharp fingers twist in his side impatiently, and Stiles gasps, bearing blood-spattered teeth. 

Peter reaches for his mate, his sweet boy, but the creature at Stiles's back growls in warning, keeping the older man at bay. “For me,” he whispers, hands clenching into fists. “Do it for me, my love.”

Stiles closes his eyes tight, squeezes them shut until he sees stars. “I'm scared.”

“I know. I am, too.” Peter waits until the young man looks at him again, until wide, pained honey eyes find his own. “But I will come back to you, Stiles. I'll find my way— _fight_ my way—to you.”

Stiles chokes, and the vibrations from it send agony in all directions. “Promise?”

Peter nods, the gesture sharp and forced. “I do.”

The young man raises his hand, holds it so that it hovers just over Peter's temple. “I love you,” he breathes, a low light beginning to burn in his palm.

Peter takes a breath, ready to say the same, but Stiles can't—he can't hear those words, knowing it will be the last time.

“Forget,” Stiles says.

And the world goes white.

0 o 0 o 0

Stiles wakes on a gasp, the pain in his side still fresh but dwindling as he sucks in stale air. There's movement around him, scenery flying by in bursts of browns and greens and grays. He's in a car, his seat belt jolting him back into place as he jerks violently when someone speaks.

“Bad dream?” 

The voice makes the young man's heart stutter, and he turns in the passenger seat, pressing his back against the door as he stares at Peter. The man's jaw is tight, his hands curled around the steering wheel like he's trying to strangle it. He doesn't spare the young spark a single glance, his gaze firmly planted on the road ahead. 

Was it a dream? A nightmare? 

The flare of pain in his side almost makes him gag, and he swallows the bile that rises to the back of his throat. He can feel it, the distance between them. He can see the indifference on Peter's face, the terrible lack of familiarity. The threads that once tethered them, bright and fucking beautiful, are frayed, damaged, broken. Dead. Stiles presses at them, tries to revive them by pushing his magic into the brittle strands, and is rewarded with pain so brutal it forces the air from his lungs.

No, it isn't a dream. It isn't a nightmare. This is his reality now—sitting beside a man who used to love him, who doesn't remember any of their time together. 

Stiles twists back into his seat, staring ahead and swiping at a stray tear as it falls. “Yeah. Shitty dream.” He can feel Peter's eyes on him, now. A heavy question hangs between them, and Stiles holds his breath until the moment passes and the older man returns his attention to the road. 

“We'll stop in the next town. We're still half a day's ride from our next hunt.”

“'Kay,” Stiles says quietly, trying not to let his panic rise. 

“Do I need to pull over? You look like you're going to vomit, and I'd rather you didn't do it in the car,” Peter says clinically. “The smell is difficult to get rid of.”

“No. I'm fine.” 

He isn't. And he's sure his heart beat betrays him. But the werewolf doesn't say anything more, and they drive in silence until the next town comes into view.

0 o 0 o 0

They're barely checked in to the motel before Peter announces that he's going to _scout the area_. In the past, it had meant he'd find the nearest bar and take home the first person that made eyes at him. Stiles had opted to sleep in the car those nights. After he and Peter had become _a thing_ , the 'scouting' became non-existent. 

Stiles can't even think of Peter bringing someone back to their motel room now. 

“Do you have to?” he says without thinking, making the older man pause, hand curled around the doorknob. He gives Stiles a bored look, like he's waiting for more but not expecting to listen to any of it. “I just mean...We've been in the car all day. I'd rather not twist my spine trying to sleep in the back seat again.”

Peter frowns like he's considering it. But the moment passes, and he opens the door. “Then, by all means, stay and enjoy the show.” 

Stiles closes his eyes as the door slams behind the werewolf, listening to the engine start and fade as Peter peals out of the parking lot. Swallowing on a dry throat, he sits and shakes on the second bed for what seems an eternity. They haven't asked for a two-bed room in months.

He's doesn't realize he's pulled his phone out until Siri announces, “ _Calling Sour Wolf_ ,” to the empty room, and Stiles listens to the line ring on speaker a few times before it clicks and the Alpha answers gruffly. 

“Stiles?”

“Hey,” the young man says, and the word is barely there. “Sorry, I know it's late.”

“It's fine. What is it?” Derek's sigh crackles in the quiet, and Stiles can't stop the tears. He has to know if he's the only one that remembers.

“Tell me what you know about me and Peter.” Stiles suspects that the Alpha knows about them. Peter hasn't been forthright about the subject, but the young man knows that Derek came to see them when they first got together—Stiles was unconscious at the time. It's been months since then, and Derek has never said a word about it.

A long silence drifts through the phone, broken when Derek takes a short, sharp breath. “Peter's told me things.”

Stiles's chest tightens. “What things?”

Derek grunts uncomfortably. “He says that you're mates. That he gave you a claiming bite.”

The young man reaches back, runs his fingers over the indentations from Peter's teeth on his neck. Still there. Still real. They burn, and he pulls his fingers away quickly. Stiles doubles over and covers his mouth, swallowing the urge to throw up. 

The Alpha hears it, though. “Stiles, what's wrong? Where's Peter?”

Stiles sucks in a breath and releases it quickly, repeating the action until the fuzziness clears from the corners of his eyes. “He's okay. He's fine.” Slowly, he sits back up, a tightness coiling in his stomach. “Something happened.”

“What do you mean 'something happened'?” Derek growls, and Stiles winces. “You said he's fine. Is he or isn't he?”

“He is,” Stiles confirms, curling his lips inward and biting them until he tastes copper.

Confused quiet. “Start from the beginning.”

Stiles leans forward, arms braced on his thighs as he closes his eyes. “We were looking into some disappearances—” A sudden sharp pain in his side has him crying out and falling to his hands and knees on the floor. He drops the phone and clutches at his side, ignoring Derek's worried questions and carefully lifting up his shirt to find a pulsing bruise along his ribcage and abdomen. Tendril-like veins creep across his chest and down below his hipbone. “Shit. You've got to be kidding me.”

“I'm calling Peter,” Derek states, and the words pull Stiles back. 

“No!” he protests, fumbling for the phone and nearly shouting into it as he wraps trembling fingers around the runed casing. “No, you can't call him. You can't tell him anything.”

“Stiles, what the hell is going on?” the Alpha demands. “Tell me where you are. I'll come to you.”

Stiles whimpers and presses his forehead into the carpet. “Listen. Derek, listen to me. Please.” He waits until the worst of the pain subsides before carefully sitting up and pressing his back to the end of the bed. “Whatever is going on, I can't...I can't explain it. And you can't tell Peter that something is wrong. I'm serious. If you do, he could—” Another pain has him gritting his teeth and shouting at the ceiling as he throws his head back against the bed.

Derek makes a noise between a growl and a whine, huffing into the phone before saying, “Tell me what to do. What do you need?”

The young man breathes and shakes until the pain is bearable. “I need you to look into djinn,” he says, spelling the word after he says it and gritting his teeth as a fresh bout of misery washes over him. “See if Chris can find any information in the Beastiary. Specifically—” He grunts and squeezes his side, forcing himself to continue. “—about how to break their curses.”

There's a short amount of murmuring from Derek's end, and then the Alpha says, “I'm putting you on speaker.”

The line clicks, and then Chris Argent's sleep-laced voice crackles from the phone. “Stiles, what happened?”

Stiles huffs in frustration and blinks rapidly at the ceiling. The revelation that Chris and Derek are in the same place this late at night—and that the young man clearly woke them both—is tamped down by the tightness in his chest. He can barely breathe. “Having a hard time with that at the moment.”

Chris sighs. “It was a djinn?”

Stiles opens his mouth, but his throat closes around his voice.

“We'll take that as a 'yes,'” the hunter says grimly. “A djinn's curse can't be spoken aloud by the one that holds it. It's a form of protection so that it can't be broken easily.” 

“Great,” Stiles wheezes, wanting nothing more than to curl in on himself. 

“We're going to have to do this carefully,” Chris says, and his words are soft. “Trying to tell us about the curse could kill you, Stiles, so I need you to just listen. Don't try to respond with any details—or at all, if you can help it.”

Stiles huffs in an attempted laugh, but the sound is desperate. “I'll do my best.”

“Okay,” the hunter says, his tone careful and his words concise as he continues. “So, Peter isn't there now?”

“No. We checked into a motel, and he left.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He said he was going to check the area, which is generally _Peter-speak_ for finding the nearest bar and fucking some bimbo in a bathroom stall. Or bringing them back here.” Stiles snorts, but there are tears in his eyes, and he lets them fall. And fall. And fall.

Quiet crackles for a bit over the phone before Derek says, “Peter wouldn't do that to you, Stiles.”

“He used to,” the young man says quietly, “before we were...us. Before the _mates_ thing.”

“Then something's changed,” Chris states, sighing as he thinks. “Does Peter know about the djinn?”

Stiles takes a breath but stops himself as a flare of pain ignites in warning. He grunts and keeps his lips pressed together.

“The curse has to do with Peter.”

Stiles closes his eyes and swallows the agony that claws its way up his throat.

“He doesn't remember encountering the djinn.”

The young spark fists the threads of the shag carpet beneath him, heels digging into the floor and legs kicking out restlessly as he holds on...holds on...

_Hold on._

“Peter...” Chris takes a breath. “Peter doesn't remember that he claimed you, that you're mates.”

The sobs bubble up and burst from Stiles before he can stop them, great and heaving and awful. He drops the phone and covers his mouth with both hands, trying to reign the noises back in, swallow them down, hide them deep inside himself. But the cries continue to spill past his lips, demanding to be heard, refusing to be contained. 

The curse of the djinn is nothing compared to the pain in his chest.

“Stiles,” Derek whines, no doubt feeling the young man's distress through the pack bonds. Stiles prays that Peter can't feel them, glad for the first time that their ties have been severed. 

“I don't...” Stiles finds his phone and holds it as well as his shaking hand allows him. “I don't know what to do.”

“Tell me where you are,” the Alpha demands.

“You can't,” Stiles begs, and his chest heaves and shudders. “He'll know something is wrong.”

“You're in pain,” Derek growls in frustration. 

“Stiles is right,” Chris says before the young man can protest again. “Interfering will get them both killed.” The tightness in the spark's chest eases slightly, and he sits and breathes raggedly and waits while Chris and Derek murmur to one another. “Stiles, we're going to look into this. We'll get back to you as soon as we find anything.”

“Okay.” Stiles can't think to say anything else. He feels raw. 

“I'll call you in the morning,” Derek says, sounding less-than-pleased that there isn't more he can do. “We'll figure this out. I promise. It's going to be okay.”

Stiles nods despite knowing they can't see him. “It's going to be okay,” he repeats, hitting the _end call_ button and letting his phone drop to the floor. “It's going to be okay.”

The young man forces stiff legs beneath himself to shove up from the floor. He pants and groans, lurching towards the bathroom and gritting his teeth as he peels his shirt over his head to stare at the ugly mottled bruise in the mirror. It's dark and dangerous-looking. Vein-like threads burst from it across his body, the thickest and darkest of them creeping towards his heart. He traces them with trembling fingers, hissing as he lays his palm on the darkest part of the bruise—he can still feel those sharp fingers twisting in his side.

There has to be something. All the knowledge he soaked in during his training as an emissary and a spark; it can't be for nothing. The more he thinks, the heavier he feels. Ache settles in his bones, and he sighs, carefully turning towards the shower and starting it.

0 o 0 o 0

He doesn't expect Peter to be back when he exits the bathroom, but the man is sitting on the bed closest to the door, scrolling through his phone and looking pointedly bored beyond reason. 

“I hope you didn't use all the hot water,” the werewolf says, not looking up.

Stiles is grateful. He's in only a towel, the bruise in plain sight. If he can casually make his way over to his bag, he might just have time to cover it with a clean shirt before Peter notices. Or maybe he won't notice Stiles at all. He's barely spared the young man a glance since the car.

Stiles breathes and tries to remember what a normal conversation between them used to be. “Should be plenty left,” he says, and his voice sounds flat in his ears. He pads over to his bag with calculated steps, moving as quickly and unsuspiciously as possible. He pulls on a pair of boxers and manages to get his shirt over his head without any noises of pain, thinking he's in the clear as he begins to shove the worn fabric down over his torso. A hand snatches at his wrist, stopping him just short of covering the offending bruise, and he freezes.

“Where did you get that?” Peter asks in interest, and Stiles can't help the hitch in his breath when warm fingers graze his side. It's almost a relief that the older man doesn't mean the claiming bite—that would be more trouble to explain than the bruise. At the first sign of black veins creeping up the werewolf's arm, Stiles twists out of his hold, backing away and watching the interest on Peter's face shift to surprise and confusion and perhaps a small amount of concern—though the last part could just be wishful thinking on the young spark's part. “You're in a lot of pain.” 

Stiles blinks the tears welling in his eyes away and sniffs, trying his best to convey nonchalance as he tugs the shirt down. He stares at a point over Peter's shoulder, refusing to look him in the eyes. “It's a bruise. I'm fine.”

Peter frowns and steps forward, boxing the young man in against a dresser that's missing half its drawers. “That didn't feel 'fine' to me.” He reaches forward again, and Stiles closes his eyes, turns his head away.

“Peter. Please don't.” Stiles shakes and breathes and waits. And when nothing happens, when Peter doesn't attempt to touch him again, he opens his eyes and looks at the man warily, unable to read his face. 

Peter's hand is inches away from him, and Stiles stares at it like it's on fire, like the mere thought of being touched by the werewolf burns. “Fine,” the older man says, lowering his hand and continuing to study Stiles with piercing eyes. “Take one of your healing potions, at least. That thing's not very pretty to look at.” He's across the room and closing the bathroom door before Stiles can register the words completely.

If a healing potion could make any sort of difference, could make this hell go away, Stiles would be downing everything within reach. He checks his bag, his mind blanking on the last time he had to use a potion, and finds only one small vial of clear liquid left.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

He shoves it back in his bag and leans against the dresser with a heavy sigh. No use wasting it. If his assumption is right, then the bruise caused by the curse can't be magicked away by a simple healing draught. The mark isn't really a bruise, anyway. It's a reminder. A warning. Stiles won't be rid of it until the curse is broken.

Or until it kills him or Peter.

The young spark stumbles his way to his bed and gently burrows himself beneath the covers, letting the ache in his body settle until the trembling stops and he's finally able to quiet his thoughts long enough to drift into unconsciousness.

_It's going to be okay._

0 o 0 o 0

Stiles dreams of Peter's eyes, staring at him without recognition. They glow blue, and for the first time in a long time, Stiles is afraid of the werewolf. Of his mate. 

When he wakes, he's drenched in sweat and breathing hard. He watches shapes bend and weave in the dark until his eyes adjust before he tosses his blanket aside and practically throws himself out of the motel bed. His head spins as he takes determined steps towards the dresser, stubbing his toe and cursing softly as he roots through his bag for a pair of jeans.

“Bad dream?” Peter's sleep-clogged voice reverberates from across the room.

Stiles spares the man a glance over his shoulder, shuddering as he sees glowing blue eyes in the darkness. “Shitty dream,” he confirms, pulling the jeans from his bag and grunting as he has to bend forward to get them on.

“Becoming a habit, isn't it?” Peter asks, shifting in the bed when Stiles doesn't say anything. “Are you going somewhere?”

Stiles slides the jeans over his hips, buttons and zips them, then reaches out blindly for the hoodie he thinks he left on the back of the desk chair. “Need some fresh air. I'll be back in a bit.” The young man waits for a protest, or even an offer to join him.

But Peter simply rolls over and hums in affirmation. Stiles stops himself just short of bolting, feeling a roiling in his stomach at the older man's lack of concern. Dry heat hits him full in the face as he leaves the motel, and he's several steps away before he realizes he left his phone on the nightstand. A quick flick of his fingers conjures the phone, and he checks the time before he shoves it into his back pocket. It's three in the morning. 

Peter— _his_ Peter—would have refused to let him go out at all. 

Stiles puts his hood up despite the heat and walks several blocks from the motel before something tugs at his senses. He takes a sharp turn on a dark corner, following the trail of broken street lights until he can hear the sounds of scuffling feet and muffled screams. He stops at the mouth of a dark alley, blinking his eyes rapidly to kick-start his night vision rune. There's a young woman struggling with a scrawny man. He looks strung out, crazed. 

The man brings a hand up and smacks her hard across the face. The yelp that escapes her as she slumps to the ground echoes down the alley and falls on deaf ears. There are several apartments facing the commotion, but not a single light turns on. They know better.

“I wouldn't do that,” he calls as the man leans over the whimpering woman, and he whips around, snarling as he sees Stiles's outline against the alleyway.

“Oh yeah?” he grinds out. His voice is hoarse, his breathing ragged, and he staggers towards Stiles like his legs aren't quite right, like they're not his own and he's trying to get used to them. “Think you're gonna stop me, kid?”

“No,” Stiles says as the guy halts right in front of him, swaying on his feet and reaching for something behind him—a knife or a gun, maybe. “I just meant that she's going to kill you.”

The guy falters and furrows his eyebrows. “Wha—” 

Before the word is fully out of his mouth, the woman is on him, sinking sharp teeth into the flesh between his shoulder and neck and ripping it from him like nothing. The guy gurgles and spits blood in Stiles's face before he falls to the ground, writhing as he bleeds out. The woman turns glowing blue eyes on the young spark and bares her red-spattered teeth.

“You smell of wolf,” she says through her fangs, her beta-shift distorting her features. “What pack do you belong to, boy?”

Stiles steps back to avoid the blood pooling at his feet. “The Hales,” he says nonchalantly, watching with a small sense of satisfaction as the name sobers the young woman. She quickly shifts back into her human form and hunches her shoulders. 

“You're the emissary,” she says with a tremor in her voice. “The human spark. The Hale Flame.”

It's nothing Stiles hasn't heard before. He has quite a reputation in the werewolf community, most of whom offer their respect. It is rare for one so young to be as powerful as he is. But there are others who fear him enough to hate him, who think he should not have the power he does. Rumors of the Hale pack being manipulated by their emissary have reached 'wolves that would see an end to Beacon Hills and the _Keeper_ of the Nemeton.

Ironic that his power should make their pack look weak.

“And you're an omega.” Stiles nudges the twitching body on the ground. “Your dinner's getting cold,” he says, his hands finding the pockets of his hoodie. “Do you always play with your food?”

“Scum.”

“I agree,” Stiles says, and his eyes snap to the young woman with a sharp focus that makes her stiffen. “But he's still human.”

She shifts on her feet nervously, backing away another step. “He was going to beat me and rob me. I've seen him do it to others.”

“But you didn't stop him then,” the spark counters, fingers twitching inside his pockets. “And he isn't the only one you've killed, is he?”

She snaps and bares her blunt teeth at him. “You don't know what you're talking about, little boy.”

“I know a lot, actually,” Stiles says flatly. He can't find it in him to muster his usual snark. Shit, it would be so appropriate in a situation like this. “I know a bunch of truckers have disappeared after picking up a poor young lady hitch-hiking across the Midwest.” He slowly takes his right hand out of his pocket, and as he does, he conjures his runed bat. The woman watches it appear from his pocket with wide eyes. Stiles loves that trick. “I know the last known trucker to disappear was from one town over.” He swings the bat around and takes a step over the body, watching the woman stumble backwards into the alley. “I know since then, several bodies have been found scattered in nearby fields, mutilated beyond recognition.” He grits his teeth and takes a few more quick steps towards her, lowering his chin as his anger rises. “I know several of those bodies were kids under the age of thirteen.”

“You can't prove it was me,” the woman shouts, her shoe catching on a soggy cardboard box and tripping her onto her back. She scratches desperately at the alley floor, backing away from him as fast as she can in the awkward position. 

Stiles hums and shrugs his shoulders. “Pretty sure if I kill you and the other killings stop, that's proof enough.” 

He raises his bat, and the woman screams in terror.

0 o 0 o 0

Stiles opens the motel room door in a daze, closing it quietly behind him and locking it out of habit. They rarely lock the door, unless the young man is on his own. Peter is enough of a security system to keep them safe from anyone who would try to break in.

He turns and nearly jumps out of his skin as he sees Peter standing right in front of him. 

“You have blood on your face,” the werewolf says quietly, and Stiles huffs, stepping around the man and starting towards the bathroom. 

“Nice of you to notice,” he says, unzipping his hoodie and ripping his arms out of it before tossing it in the direction of his bag. It lands on the floor in a heap. He enters the bathroom and tries to close the door, but Peter holds a hand out, keeping it open.

“What happened?” he demands.

Stiles sighs and turns towards the sink, twisting the faucet and letting the water turn warm-ish. “Ran into an omega.”

Peter pauses as the young man leans over the sink and cups his hands under the running water, splashing it onto his face. “Did you kill it?”

Stiles repeats the action a couple more times before holding out a hand towards the werewolf. Peter sighs and snatches a towel from the rack above the toilet, pushing it forcefully into Stiles's hand. The young man dabs at his face until it's dry then leans back against the wall. “No,” he says, refusing to look the man in the eye and instead focusing on the hideous pattern on the shower curtain. “Gave her a scare, though.” He drops the towel on the sink and sighs, scrubbing at his eyes tiredly. “I put her in a safe place and contacted the Council. They can come get her and decide what to do with her.”

Peter says nothing for a moment, and Stiles leans his head back until it _thunks_ against the wall. Gentle fingers on his arm make him flinch, but the sudden rush of pain leaving his body makes him light-headed. “Why do you still hurt so much?” The young man doesn't move as his shirt is lifted up, revealing the djinn's mark. “This looks worse. I thought you took a healing potion.”

“It's just a bruise,” Stiles murmurs, limbs feeling heavier by the moment. “Leave it alone.”

“You are this pack's emissary, darling, I would think having you at full health would be to our advantage.”

Stiles's breath hitches at the endearment, and he opens his eyes just in time to see Peter's face morph from soft to stoic. Before he can stop himself, there are words bubbling up his throat. “I wish you remembered me, Peter.” He feels the tears on his face as the werewolf sets a calculating gaze on him. 

“Remember you?”

Stiles raises a hand, fingers hovering just over Peter's jaw, his chin, his lips. “I wish you still loved me.” Pain throbs in his side, and he slumps forward, Peter catching him before he falls.

“Let's get you to bed. You need to sleep.”

Stiles doesn't protest, stumbling at the man's side until he's being laid down on one of the lumpy motel beds. He doesn't notice it's Peter's until his shoes, socks, and jeans are shucked and tossed unceremoniously off to the side, the older man laying down behind him and tugging him so that Stiles's back is flush against the werewolf's chest.

“You don't have to do this,” Stiles says tiredly, the protest half-hearted at best.

Peter shifts behind him, his warm hand curled over the bruise and keeping the pain dull. “I'm sure you've done plenty of research on werewolves and pack dynamics, Stiles. Don't act as though you're unaware of our tactile nature.”

“I'm aware.” 

Peter's breath is warm on the back of his neck. “Go to sleep.”

Stiles does, and his nightmares aren't nearly as bad.

0 o 0 o 0

Stiles wakes with a jolt, groaning as sunlight stings his eyes. The tinny sound of _Hungry Like the Wolf_ from his cellphone has him groping towards the nightstand until his fingers knock the object to the floor. He mutters a curse and leans down, searching the carpet with one eye cracked open. He snatches the phone from under the bed and answers it just before the chorus of the song ends.

“Sourwolf?” he asks groggily, rubbing at his face as he settles back into the bed. The sheets surrounding him are cold. Peter is gone. He searches the room quickly, finding no trace of the man. The bathroom door is open a crack and the light is off.

“How are you feeling?” Derek asks immediately, and Stiles sighs, letting his head fall back against a flat pillow.

“Like shit,” he grumbles, covering his eyes and moaning at the stretch in his side. 

“The Council called me this morning. They're sending a representative to take care of the omega you found last night.”

Stiles snorts. “Yeah, well, tell them to keep an eye on her. She's a scrapper.”

Derek makes a disapproving noise. “Did she hurt you?”

The young man sighs. “No. But putting her in stasis and getting rid of the guy she killed took a lot of mojo.” He pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to check the time. It's nearly eleven. They have to be checked out by noon. “Did you find anything?”

He doesn't expect an answer, and Derek's pause is not at all encouraging. But when the Alpha says, “Chris did,” his heart nearly skips a beat.

He sits up, ignoring the ache that's _fucking everywhere_ , and breathes harshly into the phone. “What is it?”

Derek sighs, and the pit of Stiles's stomach falls again. “The Beastiary said that only an act of sacrifice can break the djinn's curse.”

Stiles is quiet for a long moment. “Sacrifice,” he repeats, looking to the window as he hears Peter's car park and shut off. 

“We're not giving up,” Derek says sincerely. 

Stiles believes him. But it's not enough. “It's okay,” he says, taking a steadying breath. “I think I know what to do.”

“Don't,” Derek pleads. “Stiles, we'll find another way.”

“I'm sure you will,” the young spark reasons. “But I can't keep doing this, seeing him every day, if he's going to look at me like he doesn't even know me.”

“Then make yourself forget. Just until we can—” 

“Gotta go, Sourwolf.” He hangs up as the doorknob turns, shutting off his phone before Derek can call again. A quick, discreet flick of his fingers ensures that Peter's phone is silenced as he walks through the door, holding a drink carrier with two coffees.

The older man removes his sunglasses and offers Stiles a cursory glance before closing the door and setting the carrier aside. “And how is our fearless Alpha this morning?” One corner of Stiles's mouth twitches, and he looks down at his phone, turning it in his hands a couple of times before setting it on the bed. “I assume he knows what's going on with you.”

“He does,” Stiles admits, his usual nervous ticks distressingly absent. He feels weighted, full of lead. He thinks if he gave in, let the curse consume him, he might just crumble into nothing. And that would be okay. It would be better than this hell he's living now. “Do you trust me, Peter?”

Peter stills, studying the young man carefully before responding. “You're pack. Of course I trust you.” 

Stiles nods absently. “I have to tell you something.”

The werewolf falters for only a moment before dropping his keys and sunglasses beside the drinks on the desk and making his way to the other bed, sitting opposite the young man with a neutral expression. “Is it going to be more riddles like last night? Because I'm not sure I'm in the mood for—” 

Stiles suddenly drops to his knees from the bed, pressing himself between Peter's thighs and resting his hands on the man's hips. Peter, for his part, doesn't flinch or move back from the young man, keeping his hands on his thighs and letting Stiles stare at him with a wide, fear-laced gaze.

“I've been having nightmares about you,” he says, swallowing hard and tilting his head as his eyes wander Peter's face, “about you forgetting me.”

Peter's nostrils flare, and he lowers his chin to catch the young man's attention. “That's something that frightens you? Being forgotten?”

Stiles clenches his fingers in the fabric of the older man's shirt. “Only by you,” he confesses, shivering as one of Peter's hands wraps around his arm. “I've been forgotten before, Peter. And so have you. We vanished, and no one knew to look for us. Do you remember?”

The older man nods. “The Ghost Riders,” he confirms, pressing his lips into a thin line. Neither of them like to talk about that time.

“Not even that compares to losing you,” Stiles says, tears sliding unbidden down his face.

Peter reaches up, frowning and faltering before his fingers graze the young man's cheek. “I don't understand, Stiles.”

Stiles nods, wiping at the tears himself and placing trembling hands on either side of Peter's face with a forced smile. “I know. I know it doesn't, and I'm sorry I didn't realize what to do before. But this will all make sense, I promise. I just need you to trust me to help you remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Me.” Stiles's bottom lip quivers as he grimaces, but he sucks in a breath and fights through the pain, the exhaustion, the dread tightening its hold on his chest. “Please. Please, please, please.” He begs over and over until Peter's hold on his arm tightens. 

“Remembering,” the older man says carefully, “is going to hurt you.”

Stiles closes his eyes and breathes. “Yes.”

Peter hesitates. “Is it going to kill you?”

“Yes.” Stiles shakes and forces his eyes open again, trying to focus despite the tears swimming in his eyes. 

“Then why would you want me to remember?”

The young spark wavers on his knees, drowsiness washing over him and slurring his words. “Because I can't live without you, Peter.”

Peter's eyebrows furrow. He looks almost angry as he asks, “But you would have me live without you?”

“Yes,” Stiles confesses almost before the other man has the words out, nodding in desperation. He pauses and rubs the apples of Peter's cheeks with his thumbs. “Does that make me selfish?”

“A little.”

The young spark huffs in laughter and pain and despair. “Good.” He leans forward, hesitating a breath from Peter's lips to allow the man to pull out of his grasp if he wants to. “Trust me,” he whispers before pressing his mouth to the other man's, trying to make it last for as long as he can. His hands shift from Peter's face, hovering over the man's temples as he pulls away from the kiss. He keeps his eyes closed as he whispers, “Remember.”

The world goes white, and the pain is gone.

0 o 0 o 0

Stiles wakes with a gasp and a violent jerk. His ears ring and boom with noises he can't distinguish. He thinks they might be voices, shouts. The bursts of pain that erupt from fucking everywhere make tears prickle behind his eyes, and he searches wildly, seeing blurred shapes and faces swimming in front of him. 

Is this death? Is this hell?

“Stop,” he begs, fighting against the hands that slide across his body, grab him, keep him still. He grits his teeth and tugs at the last tendrils of power that he can feel fading away, shoving it outward and sighing when the hands disappear, when the pain fades to a dull ache and he can feel himself slipping away.

But through the noise and confusion, a voice pulls at him, drags his very core back into existence. “Stiles!” 

His eyes snap open, and glowing blues stare back at him in desperation. “No,” he pleads, shaking his head and trying to get away, escape. His hands are bound above his head, and his arms ache from holding his weight. “No, no, no.”

Careful hands take his face, caress his skin, and it takes all his strength not to lean into the familiar touch, not to beg for more. “Stiles, sweetheart, it's me. It's Peter.”

Stiles closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You can't be here. You can't...Peter, you have to go.”

Peter jerks the young man's head, forcing him to open his eyes. “I'm not leaving without you. Now stay very still. I think one of your shoulders may have been dislocated.” 

Stiles does as he's told, refusing to let the hope bubbling in his chest swell. He still doesn't quite believe this isn't a dream—that this isn't some form of torture. He grunts when his hands are released, falling into Peter's arms and holding him as tightly as he can while pain is leeched from his body. 

“Is he all right?” a gruff voice asks, and Stiles cracks his eyes open to see Derek and Chris watching him carefully.

Peter hands something off to the Alpha and gently picks Stiles up bridal-style. “He's confused. Open that, he has to drink it.” A cork releasing from a vial echoes in the space around them. “Stiles, we're going to give you a healing potion. Drink it all, darling.”

Stiles opens his mouth when something cool is pressed to his lips, swallowing the peppermint liquid as it's tipped into his mouth. He breathes deeply as the vice on his chest loosens and a warmth spreads through his limbs. “Shit, that feels good.”

Peter chuckles, and the vibration of the noise sings through Stiles's bones. “You do good work.”

The young spark licks his lips and presses his cheek to Peter's shoulder, looking up at the older man and breathing until he finds the courage to speak again. “Do you remember me, Peter?”

The werewolf dons a painful smile. “Of course I remember you, sweet boy.” He shifts Stiles carefully and gives the other two men a furtive glace. “What's the last thing you can recall?”

“I...” Phantom pain echoes in his side, and he gasps, fingers twisting in Peter's shirt. “I made you forget. And then I woke up in your car. You didn't—” He shakes his head, his breaths coming faster as panic takes over. “You didn't remember we're mates. You looked right at me, and you didn't remember me.” 

Peter shushes him as his hold tightens. “It was a dream,” he explains. “Stiles, you've been missing for three days. You disappeared without a trace, and I called Derek and Chris to help me look for you. We found the djinn's den and came for you.”

“How do I know this isn't a dream?” Stiles asks quietly, his stomach churning. “How do I know you're really here?”

Peter turns, facing the young man towards a heap on the ground. “Look, there. That's the djinn that took you. They cannot appear in the dreams they create to keep you docile while they steal your power. He's dead, I promise.”

Stiles breathes and studies the smoldering figure on the floor of the abandoned space. It looks like an old hospital. There are hooks hanging from the ceiling, as well as IV bags full of clear liquid. The creature probably hung his victims up and kept them alive with fluids while he drained them. “Three days?” the young man asks weakly, closing his eyes when Peter nods. “That would explain why I smell so bad.”

Several huffs of laughter echo, and Peter presses dry lips to the young man's forehead. “I'll help you get cleaned up back at the motel. Then we'll head home for a while.” His footsteps are soothing as he carries Stiles from the nightmare-ish place. “I'd like to keep you in bed for as long as possible.”

Stiles hums and drifts as clear, warm air spills down his throat and into lungs that have breathed only dust and dirt for the last few days. “That sounds nice.”

Peter settles him in the back of a large SUV—Chris's—and cradles his head in his lap, helping him drink as much water as he can stomach. He dozes as they drive until a sudden thought has him turning his head and frowning at the front windshield. “Derek?” 

The Alpha glances over his shoulder from the passenger seat with a murmured, “Yeah?”

“Are you and Chris fucking?” the young spark asks bluntly, and Derek's face goes slack. Chris is the first to break the silence that follows, his deep laugh making the Alpha scowl and turn back towards the front. “Is that a yes?”

“What on earth would give you an idea like that, my love?” Peter asks, a smirk on his face as he runs his fingers through Stiles's hair.

The young man looks up at him with furrowed eyebrows, an admonishment on the tip of his tongue—because if Peter knew about this and didn't tell him, that's so messed up—but he falters as the older man smiles down at him, soft and genuine. “Can you call me that again?”

Peter's smile widens, and he strings his fingers through Stiles's with his free hand. “My love,” he says softly.

Stiles sighs and closes his eyes. “Again.”

“My love.”

The young spark's jaw cracks as he yawns. “Again.”

Peter chuckles and whispers, “Go to sleep, my love.”

Stiles turns his face into Peter's stomach, fingers squeezing the hand in his. “Promise you'll remember me when I wake up.” It isn't a question—it's a demand.

The hand in the younger man's hair stills. “I will never, ever forget you, Stiles.” The words sound broken and pained. “I swear it.”

“Okay,” Stiles says on a breath just as he falls into a blessedly dreamless sleep, where he can believe Peter's words, if only for a little while.

BONUS SCENE: 

Stiles arches under Peter, head falling back into plump pillows as his fingers grip soft sheets. The werwolf certainly has a penchant for luxury, and Egyptian cotton is one thing that Stiles can't seem to argue against. 

“Fuck,” he says on a breath as the older man moves inside him with long, steady strokes. “Fuck, I missed this, Peter.”

They've been back in Beacon Hills for a week, and the werewolf has refused anything more than gentle make-out sessions in that time. Not that Stiles blames him. The young man looked like death the first few days. It took another healing potion and a solid forty-eight hours of sleep with intermittent forced feedings from Peter before the hollowness in his cheeks filled out and the bones in his hips weren't so prominent. 

“So did I, darling,” Peter pants, licking a path up Stiles's chest and laving at the hollow of his collarbone. “Missed this beautiful body beneath me.” He sucks dark marks into the soft skin of the young man's neck. “Missed how tight you are around me.” Ducking his head, he swirls his tongue over one of Stiles's nipples, biting and sucking to pull moan after moan from the young man and repeating the action with the other. “Missed the pretty noises you make when I'm inside you.”

Stiles's fingers string into Peter's hair, clenching as he arches again at the attention the werewolf is giving him. His skin tingles under the man's tongue, his body sparks in ecstasy from every solid thrust. He writhes and keens, begging the other man for more, promising he can take it.

Peter suddenly sits up, pulling the young man with him and thrusting up into him as he tugs Stiles's hips down onto his lap. The new angle makes pleasure shoot up the spark's spine, and his mouth drops open as punched-out noises claw their way from his throat. 

“There,” he pleads, fingers gripping Peter's shoulders as he tries to work himself faster on the man's cock. “Yes, Peter, there! More!”

Peter hastens his rhythm, reaching around Stiles to finger where the young man is stretched around him. Stiles jolts as the man works a fingertip in just past the rim, tugging gently and watching the spark fall apart. “Beautiful,” he says in amazement, in awe, in wonder. “Perfect. Like you were made for me.”

Stiles's hands glide up Peter's neck until they're cupping the man's face. “Only you,” he breathes into Peter's mouth before covering the man's lips with his own and swallowing the growl that the werewolf makes. Stiles moans into the kiss as he comes, clenching around Peter and holding his mouth against his until the older man comes several thrusts later. They pant and kiss as Peter lays Stiles onto his back. The younger man refuses to let Peter pull out, wrapping his arms around the back of the werewolf's neck and squeezing his thighs against Peter's sides to keep him in place. 

Peter chuckles between kisses. “You'll be sore if we stay like this.”

“Good,” Stiles says, grunting as he clenches around the man's soft cock. “I want to see if I can get you hard again while you're inside me.”

“Shouldn't be a challenge,” Peter says, pressing his tongue to Stiles's as their kisses turn wet and open. It almost becomes a game between them—who can explore more of the other's mouth before they need to break for air.

“So,” Stiles says once Peter has moved on to nipping at the young man's jaw and throat, “Chris and Derek.”

Peter pauses and then drops his head with a sigh. “Please tell me you did not just mention Argent and my nephew while I am _still inside of you_.” 

Stiles drums his fingers on Peter's shoulder. “I don't see what the big deal is. It's a simple 'yes, they are' or 'no, they aren't.'”

Peter pushes himself up, careful as he pulls out of the young man, and flops onto his back beside him. “The 'big deal,' darling, is that you're asking while we're in bed together. _Our_ bed, I might add. And I'd rather not be thinking of other people while we're—” 

“'Our' bed?” Stiles interrupts, his breath hitching as he stares at the ceiling. “You mean _your_ bed.”

Peter falters, turning his head to look at the younger man with honest confusion. “No, I mean _our_ bed. As in the bed we share as mates. The bed you've suddenly decided to taint with thoughts of the relationship between two other men.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says, sounding not in the least apologetic. “But you did say 'our' bed, right?”

“Yes.”

“As in your bed and also my bed.”

“Correct.”

“So...are you asking me to move in with you, or something?” Stiles asks, finally turning his head and meeting the man's steady gaze.

Peter sighs, more frustrated with himself than the younger man. Of course Stiles would have to ask, would have to make sure he was allowed any sort of happiness, any kind of privilege in Peter's life. He doesn't understand that Peter's life is now _his_. 

He sits up, propping himself on his side with his elbow and looking down at the young man. “Stiles, the claim I made on you means that our lives are intertwined. Whatever I have to offer in this lifetime—it is yours to take.” 

Stiles watches him with wide eyes for several moments before also turning onto his side and pressing himself flush against the man, crushing their mouths together in a long, sweet kiss. “Thank you,” he says softly, smiling as he pushes the man on his back and lays on top of him in a gangly-limbed hug. 

“And not to make light of the situation,” Peter continues, content as he runs his fingers through Stiles's hair, “but most of your things are scattered around here anyway. I think you moved in quite a while ago.”

Stiles props his chin on Peter's chest and frowns in thought. “Most of my books are in storage.”

Peter lets his eyes fall shut. “I'll have another bookcase built.”

A quiet stretches between them, broken only when Stiles's whirlwind thoughts can no longer be contained. “But they are a thing, right?”

The werewolf sighs. “Yes, Stiles. They are 'a thing.'”

“Knew it,” the young man whispers before he climbs over the older man and out of bed. “I'm going to take a shower.” Peter cracks an eye open as Stiles leans over him with a wide smile. “In _our_ bathroom.”

Peter has the willpower to watch the young man take five steps before he's out of bed and following him.

**Author's Note:**

> *throws confetti* HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, MY BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!


End file.
